Not all street have always been streets. The avenues of the periphery of Santiago: Los Morros road

Abstract

Not all streets have always been streets. Streets from central districts in many South American cities were configured as a result of land subdivision in blocks and plots along orthogonal arteries for circulation and access to properties that shaped them and gave them life. Something quite different are the routes, roads, and driveways which since colonial times have extended from main axes or city thresholds towards nearby or distant towns forming settlement systems whose relationships were based on economic, military or religious links concerning the territory controlled by these cities. Peripheral avenues in our contemporary cities were often roads or routes. This article focuses on a research about the Gran Avenida, one of the main arteries crossing Santiago de Chile, from downtown to the poor southern part of the city, to focus in Avenida Los Morros and its evolution from road to urban avenue. The interest upon this section of the once colonial road lies in the fact that it allows us to observe how its condition of road has been critical to the development of its current urban environment, and to the gradual constitution of this avenue as a public domain.